Surgical procedures have proliferated among the medical practice as new treatments are developed to effectively treat common and extraordinary conditions. The spectrum of invasiveness goes from simple tissue suturing of small open wounds to complicated procedures as those performed in vascular or neurological surgeries. It is undoubted that each and every step on any surgical procedure is of great importance and could cause negative consequences for the patient if it is inadequately performed. The suturing procedure, in particular, could end in serious consequences for the patient if negligently conducted, causing damages to adjacent tissues or even organs.
It is known that the suturing procedure consumes a considerable amount of time of the surgical treatment. Simplification of the suturing procedure by developing more effective suturing devices will reduce the time spent on that task and at the same time will reduce the risk of negative consequences arising from damages caused to adjacent tissues or organs.
Generally, the instruments used in suturing procedures are the suturing material, the suturing needle and the needle driver. Efforts made to reduce the suturing time and to enhance the suturing procedures' safety have been focused on performing needle driver's modifications; there are also certain devices on the prior art designed to improve the prior needle driver designs. For instance, Scanlan, Jr, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,951 discloses a device to drive a needle through the bony structure of the sternum and to facilitate closing the chest cage after thoracic surgery.
Similarly, Yoon in U.S. Pat. No. 5,759,188 discloses a suturing instrument comprising a needle driver and a needle catcher to be used in laparoscopic procedures.
Alternatively, Stoianovici in U.S. Pat. No. 6,400,979 B1 discloses a method of performing a radiological-imaged-guided percutaneous surgery with a system including a radiological image generating device for generating images of the targeted area, and a needle insertion mechanism disposed adjacent the image generating device.
On the other hand, McGarry U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,973 B1 discloses vascular anastomosis incorporating sutures for joining a graft blood vessel to a target blood vessel such as the aorta or coronary artery. The entire content of all of the above cited US patents are hereby incorporated by reference.
However, one of the generally unattended deficiencies of the available needle drivers is the handedness of its designs. Ordinarily, needle drivers are designed to fit right handed users. Thus, left handed users have difficulties performing the suturing procedure. The right handedness of those devices further affects the capacity of left handed surgeons to lock and unlock the drivers' locking mechanism. This increases the risks of negative outcomes for patients from wrong needle driver maneuverings. That is why latest suturing devices very often fail to ease the drivers handling. The available drivers without handedness are very rare and delicates because they are designed mostly for ocular and microvascular procedures.